


Waverly

by Pandelion



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Realities, M/M, next stop: the twilight zone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 11:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandelion/pseuds/Pandelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Philadelphia! Please have your tickets out!” the conductor calls and Phil is once again looking at the familiar countryside blurring past, no sign of Waverly or the archer, Clint Barton.</p>
<p>Phil takes a deep breath, then another. “Just a dream,” he mutters. “Just a dream.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waverly

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off of a Twilight Zone episode called "A Stop at Willoughby."
> 
> Also, there is a mention of infidelity (not by any main characters).

“Agent Coulson, I was led to understand that this was a meeting of some importance,” General Ross says from where he is seated at the head of the table. “Something about gamma ray weapons…?”

“Yes, sir,” Phil answers. “The, ah, specialist seems to be having difficulty finding the—“

“He was having trouble with traffic twenty minutes ago, Agent Coulson,” Ross says over him. “And ten minutes before that, he was just leaving another meeting. I’m not entirely sure you understand just how valuable my time is, Agent.”

Phil fights the urge to rub his temples to ease the ache building there. Before he can reply, though, the door opens and the secretary, Sharon Carter, hands him an envelope with an apologetic smile.

“From Doctor Banner, sir,” she murmurs before slipping out again.

With a dread certainty that he already knows what is in the envelope, he pulls out the letter and scans it.

“What is it?” Ross demands.

“It’s a missive, sir,” Phil replies evenly. “From Doctor Banner.”

“And what does it say?” the general asks with fake patience. He is glaring at Phil and Phil thinks briefly of the contract to supply gamma ray weapons to the Air Force, the one that would bring in as much income as the rest of SHIELD’s contracts combined. The one that has just been ruined by the paper he held.

“It’s his resignation letter, sir,” Phil says. “He’s left and taken the gamma ray formula with him.”

“What?” Ross bellows. “He took it with him? That formula was promised to me in the form of weapons we can use, Agent Coulson! And you’re telling me he just walked off with it!”

“It’s as much a shock to me as it is—“

“Don’t pander to me, boy!” General Ross slams a fist into the table and the various other military and SHIELD personnel around the table jump. Phil barely suppresses his own flinch. “There is a standard that we are all held to in this business, Agent, and not even SHIELD is above the law. This business is all drive, all push and drive and you can’t slack off for one second or this sort of thing happens. You’ve got to push, push, push or off goes a whole new design of revolutionary weapons and you’re left twiddling your thumbs in a sidebar of history. Well, not me! I can push as well as anyone, better even, and this sort of failure is not—“

“Do cease your prattling, General Ross!” Phil snaps and the general gapes at him. Jaw clenched, Phil takes a deep breath. “I apologize for apparently wasting your time and if you’ll excuse me—“ He turns and lets himself out of the meeting room, ignoring General Ross’ shouts behind him and a rising babble from the other people. For a moment, he leans against the door and closes his eyes, wishing for a job where he doesn’t have to pander to assholes, where he can actually use the talents SHIELD hired him for.

“Agent Coulson…?” Sharon says. He turns to give her a tight smile.

“Ms. Carter. I’m sorry, but I’ll be leaving early today,” he says, making his way to the small office across the entry way that they gave him for the interim.

“Oh, ah, very well, sir. There are some messages on your desk from Director Fury and Agent Hill—“

“I’ll get to them tomorrow.” His briefcase is already packed; the meeting with Ross had been his last one of the day and he’s scheduled to move back to the main SHIELD offices by tomorrow. Right now, he is just glad he doesn’t have to take any extra time to pack up.

“—and I could fetch you like a cup of coffee or something?” she offers.

“A gun and carte blanche to shoot military assholes, along with a bottle of whiskey, would fit the bill,” he says as he steps out of his office. The meeting room doors are still closed, but the voices beyond have risen in volume. Sharon looks worried and he makes an effort to smile properly at her.

“Everything is all right, Ms. Carter,” he assures her. “Just a rather major set-back in the Air Force contract, nothing that can’t be fixed with some time and effort, I’m sure.”

“Of course, sir,” she says, plainly unconvinced.

“Good night, Ms. Carter,” he says.

The shouting follows him for a while after the actual noise has faded away.

~*~

The train he catches isn’t his usual one, it being a good deal earlier than his usual time, but the emptier cars are a relief and he finds a seat a good distance away from any of the other passengers with relative ease. Briefcase balanced on his lap, he closes his window on the drizzle of rain that is starting up and lets his head fall against the cool plastic.

There will be hell to pay tomorrow, he knows. Fury would be understandably upset at losing the Air Force contract and there is the fall-out of Doctor Banner making off with billions of dollars of gamma ray research and development to mitigate. There is going to be paperwork, of course, so very much paperwork.

The train jerks and rumbles as it starts to accelerate and Phil sighs. The motion and noise is familiar and he lets it fade into the background. It’s rather soothing, in fact, such honest noise after the grating sound of General Ross’ voice.

~*~

“Waverly,” the conductor calls, startling Phil out of sleep. “Next stop, Waverly.” He pauses by Phil’s seat to smile at him. “Next stop, Waverly, Mr. Coulson.”

“Waverly?” Phil echoes, confused. He’s been taking this route to and from his job in New York City for the last four years and there’s never been a stop called ‘Waverly.’ He tells the conductor as much.

“That’s Waverly out there,” the conductor said and Phil twisted around to stare out the window as the train slowed down. Beyond, there was a small town and he could see the spire of a church, a gazebo, men and women and children going about their daily lives. The sun was shining like it was high summer and Phil could almost feel the confusion settling on him.

He turned back to the conductor. “Where are we? It was raining when we left New York.”

“Waverly, sir,” the conductor said cheerfully. “It’s July. A real hot one, too.” He considers Phil for a moment. “You ought to try it. It’s got plenty of opportunity. Lots of good you can do.”

The conductor moves on, calling out, “Waverly,” as he goes, and Phil turns back to the window. They’re come to the station and the train rocks a bit upon stopping. There’s a wooden sign hanging outside, the word Waverly written across it in large block letters. Two boys run past, fishing poles in hand and Phil is reminded of his childhood, back before he knew about SHIELD and gamma rays and things that used to be just science-fiction.

Along the station, there are benches, most of them empty. At the far end, though, a young man is hunched in on himself, a single piece of luggage at his feet. He’s too far away for Phil to make out any details, but the ragged sweatshirt and faded jeans are clear enough. Phil looks again at the active town of Waverly and wonders where the man is going.

The abrupt shift into chaos is surprising and for a moment, Phil just stares as people start screaming and running. Men in bulky yellow Hazmat suits swarm into the square and start shooting what Phil thinks are some sort of plasma weapon. At that point, his training kicks in and he’s levering himself out of his seat when he sees movement.

A bow in hand and a quiver across his back, the young man from the bench is scaling the side of the station building and Phil watches him settle onto the corner of the building and start shooting arrows down at the Hazmat suits.

As suit after suit crumbles to the ground, Phil’s reminded that he can help and he turns again to leave his seat.

~*~

“Philadelphia!” the conductor calls. “Coming up on Philadelphia! Please have your tickets ready.”

For a moment Phil can’t think past his racing heart and the need to get up and help the people of Waverly. The he glances at the window and sees the same drizzly countryside he’s used to seeing. Around him, the other passengers are digging for tickets, sleeping or reading; none of them seem perturbed.

“Ticket, sir?” the conductor asks and Phil absently hands over the piece of paper to be marked.

“Excuse me,” he says and the conductor raises his eyebrows, nods at him. “Is there a stop called Waverly?”

“Waverly?” the conductor repeats, sounding thoughtful. “No, no Waverly on this line.”

Phil nods and takes his marked ticket when the conductor hands it back. “Ah, right. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” the conductor says and then he’s moving on, asking for tickets and calling out Philadelphia as the next stop.

Phil stares out the window as Philadelphia’s train station came into view. “Just a dream,” he murmurs to himself. “That’s all it was. Just a dream.”

~*~

The house is dark when he gets out of the taxi, but for once, Phil’s not bothered by it. Diane is probably already asleep, so he sets his briefcase on the table in the hall and makes his way into the study without turning on a light, having long since memorized the layout of the house.

The whiskey is exactly where he expects it to be and he pours himself a few fingers, settling in a chair before sipping at it. It burns a bit, but he’s used to it and right now, it grounds him, gives him something to hold onto as real.

Waverly had seemed real enough at the time, he recalls. Acrid smoke from the train, the sounds of people going about their daily business, the sharp reports of guns, the bright colors.

Phil downs the rest of the whiskey in one go.

It’s a long time before he manages to rouse himself enough to slip upstairs and into bed, down the hall from Diane’s room.

~*~

There is a note on the counter when Phil goes downstairs in the morning, just a simple, “We need to talk,” in Diane’s neat cursive. He sighs and opens to cupboard to get the coffee grounds out; it’s be too much to hope she hasn’t heard about the scene at the office and just wants to talk about maybe getting someone in to landscape the lawn again.

The train ride into the city is uneventful, though perhaps that’s because he doesn’t fall asleep, sipping at his coffee and watching the rising sun creep fingers across the landscape.

At the office—the main SHIELD offices, rather than the temporary building he’d been assigned to during the talks with General Ross—things are subdued and Phil is summoned into Fury’s office almost as soon as he gets in the door. The lecture and scolding are everything he’d expected and the restriction to processing the backlog of paperwork is almost a relief. He nods and says, “Yes, sir,” at the right points and finally he’s dismissed with a tired wave of the hand.

Phil spends the rest of the day in his office, working through the paperwork, which is almost comforting in the way it doesn’t shout insults at him or expect miracles on impossible deadlines. Just the repetition of filling out each little box and signing the dotted line. He emerges for lunch and coffee refills and the PA here, Natasha Romanoff, gives him sympathetic looks, but doesn’t say anything and he’s grateful for that.

At six, he bundles up the finished paperwork, organizes it into the appropriate outboxes and heads for the train station. It’s as he’s standing on the platform and waiting for the train that it occurs to him to wonder _why_ he doesn’t like his job.

He frowns at the far side of the tracks. He doesn’t like his job, that much is true, but he hasn’t really spent much time on the reasoning behind that statement.

The train comes into the station, slowing and stopping with a squeal of brakes and groaning metal, and Phil waits for passengers to disembark, his mind turning over this new question.

It’s as he’s settling into a seat, briefcase laid on the chair next to him, that he finds the first reasons, remembered from the scene with General Ross the day before. He’d been hired by SHIELD out of the Rangers and going in, he’d thought that maybe he was going to be a government agent, investigating things that the general public wasn’t privy to and utilizing his unique skill set in situations a bit more…exciting, than meetings with generals with over-inflated sense of importance.

He sighs. He’s kept his weapons qualification over the last seven years, training in the range as often as he can manage, and his hand-to-hand skills haven’t lacked for the same reason, but there are plenty of things that only regular field experience can hone and keep sharp. This office job, while consistent, is stifling him.

The military assholes haven’t changed since his days as a Ranger, he has to admit, but somehow, it’s harder to deal with them as a suit, without the ability to use the chain of command to his benefit or respond in terms they understand. And really, he’d be willing to do some pandering so long as he got out into the field sometimes.

Phil can think of a few more reasons, such as the subpar coffee that office jobs seem to revolve around, but everything keeps coming back to that first one. He needs open air and space to do what he does best—paperwork has its place, but it’s hard to get into a chokehold and wrangle secrets from pieces of paper.

Another sigh and Phil rolls his head so that his forehead is pressed against the window. No rain today, but the landscape is a familiar blur of green and brown and he can feel his eyes drooping shut. For a moment, he fights it, but then he thinks of maybe dreaming of Waverly again and suddenly, sleep is a much more welcome prospect.

~*~

“Waverly! Next stop, Waverly!”

Phil blinks his eyes open as the conductor passes by. He’s alone on the train again and outside, the Waverly station is coming into view. He glances around, seeing a scene very similar to what he’d seen before. The boys run by again, fishing poles curving over their shoulders, and when Phil looks, the far bench is occupied by the young man who had shot arrows with amazing precision.

“Almost like this is where it starts,” he murmurs to himself. Then the shouts begin and he’s watching it again, the yellow Hazmat suits overtaking the square and the young man scrambling up the wall with his bow and quiver.

This time, Phil rushes to the door between train cars and stands there. Invader after invader falls with an arrow sticking out of them and Phil wants to help, can feel the urge to leap into the fight thick at the back of his throat; he’d missed this, the action, the adrenaline rush of facing and dealing out death. He reaches for his gun, only to remember that he doesn’t have a license to carry anymore and his gun is locked up in the safe at the house.

The invaders seem to finally be realizing that the archer is taking them out, because a squad of them rush towards the station. A few drop to the ground, taken out by well-placed arrows, but the rest scatter and end up against the wall of the station, out of range of the archer.

The young man is trying, but the way his weapon works, he can’t see them and without a line of sight, the bow is useless. Phil considers the man’s aim, the way he’d leapt into action against the invaders and he’s shouting out before he can think about it.

“Two o’clock!”

The archer immediately twists and shoots blindly and a yellow suit tumbles to the ground. He turns back and looks right at Phil, a grin splitting his face.

“Thanks, g-man! Got any more angles for me?” he calls and Phil barely manages to keep from smiling back.

“Ten o’clock and eight,” he shouts instead and seconds later, two more arrows have found their marks. “Four-thirty!” And the last one falls. “What’s your name?”

The archer is drawing his bow, but he turns to smirk at Phil as he releases the arrow. “Clint Barton,” he says as the arrow puts another invader on the ground. Phil does his best to ignore the way that makes something in him burn hot and tight.

He opens his mouth to reply, give his name in return.

~*~

“Philadelphia! Please have your tickets out!” the conductor calls and Phil is once again looking at the familiar countryside blurring past, no sign of Waverly or the archer, Clint Barton.

Phil takes a deep breath, then another. “Just a dream,” he mutters. “Just a dream.”

“Ticket, sir?” the conductor asks and Phil digs for the scrap of paper. The conductor punches it and hands it back. “Oh, by the way, I looked up Waverly. The stop you asked about?” he says and Phil realizes it’s the same man from the day before.

“Oh, yes. What about it?”

“There’s never been a Waverly on this line. You might have been thinking about a different train,” the conductor tells him.

Phil nods and forces a half smile. “Ah, yes. I probably was, thank you.”

“No problem,” is the reply and then the conductor is moving away, announcing Philadelphia as the next stop and asking for tickets. Phil sinks back into his seat and closes his eyes, just for a moment—

_“Clint Barton,” he says as the arrow—_

\--and quickly opens them again. The rest of the ride into Philadelphia is spent clutching his briefcase and staring at the back of the seat in front of him, the view from the window a dark blur out of the corner of his eye.

~*~

It’s as he’s paying the cab driver that Phil remembers Diane’s short note. Talking to his estranged wife isn’t something Phil really feels up to, even after a non-eventful day, but when Diane gets an idea into her head, there’s little anyone can do to change her mind.

Still, he takes his time walking to the front door, sets his briefcase on the table in the hall as slowly as he can manage and he takes the long way to the kitchen, idly fantasizing about just putting together a sandwich before going to bed. It’s nothing like what he expects will actually happen, but it’s a nice thought.

To his surprise, Diane isn’t waiting for him in the kitchen. Phil stands in the doorway for a long moment, taken aback by the empty room. But then a folder on the counter catches his attention and he reaches for it. For a moment, the words at the top are just groupings of random letters, but then they clarify into words.

Phil sets the folder down gently and makes himself a sandwich. He eats it standing up, leaning against the counter opposite where the folder is sitting. While he eats, he thinks.

It’s been five years since he stood at the altar and promised his life and heart to Diane, but it feels like an eternity. What had been endearing persistence during their courtship turned into frustrating stubbornness after the honeymoon. The encouragement to do better, to do more, became admonishments for doing so poorly, so little. He hasn’t shared her bed in nearly two years and yet has been faithful to his vows, something he knows that she hasn’t done.

He had thought it the happiest day of his life when he married her.

Now, he thinks he may be happier to sign the papers in that folder.

Sandwich finished, he rummages in a drawer for a working pen and picks up the folder again, feeling the weight of it. Taking it to the table, he opens it and pulls out the top sheet of paper, settling in for a long read.

~*~

Only Natasha notices, the next day. He’s handing her a packet of finished forms and her gaze catches on his newly bare hand.

“Oh,” she says, but she takes the papers and doesn’t say anything else. He gives her a smile, then goes back to his office and the next stack of paper work.

~*~

He’s almost expecting it, this time. The way he drifts into sleep only to be awoken by the announcement of Waverly as the next stop. Sitting up straight, he looks at the conductor.

“Waverly?” he asks.

“Yes, sir, Waverly,” the conductor answers with a smile. “Are you getting off at Waverly?”

Phil glances out of the window, at the station that’s drawing nearer. “Maybe,” he says slowly.

The conductor nods. “It’s a good place, in a good world,” he says. “A place where a man can do things to the full extent of his ability.”

“I like the sound of that,” Phil admits and the conductor smiles at him.

“A lot of people do.”

As the conductor moves on, Phil’s eyes drop to the briefcase on the seat next to him. It’s full of non-confidential forms that he’d thought to finish at home, but suddenly, he hates the idea of working on paperwork in an empty kitchen in an empty house.

The train shudders to a halt and he looks out, just to make sure. There are the boys with the fishing poles and there is the archer—Clint Barton, he remembers—slouched on the bench at the far end of the platform.

He gets to the door just as the Hazmat invaders arrive. Barton scales the station building and when the squad peels off to head for him, Phil doesn’t hesitate in calling out angles. He gets the same grin in response, but this time, he’s noticed by the other invaders. Three rush at him and for a long moment, Phil just stares at them, frozen with indecision.

Then one of them falls with an arrow in his—her?—throat and Phil throws himself into motions that are familiar, but long unused. The weapons are quickly neutralized and he kicks and punches until the two suits are prone on the ground. He stands over them, breathing heavier than he’d like—he’s out of shape and out of practice and it shows—before grabbing one of the guns and darting for the relative protection of the station.

He’s aiming and shooting, feeling a small thrill every time a suit falls to the ground, and he’s so focused on it that he barely registers the train leaving the station. The whistle is what catches his attention and he turns to watch it go. From the door, the conductor waves at him and Phil lifts a hand in response. It seems like a farewell and Phil thinks that might be appropriate.

Goodbye, SHIELD. Goodbye, paper work. Goodbye, Diane.

Turning back to the fight, he pushes those thoughts aside and focused on putting down as many of the opposing force as he can.

~*~

The next time he’s aware of anything beyond finding the next yellow suit to shoot at, it’s the sound of helicopter rotors that pulls his eyes up. He watches as gunfire spits from the black birds, Hazmat suits dropping with every burst. After five minutes, there are no yellow suits standing and the helicopters move to land. Two peel away to the right, three to the left, but one sets down in the middle of the town square. Men spill out, dressed in black tactical gear and guns swiveling around.

Phil watches, unsure, as the men secure a perimeter around the helicopter. The man that climbs out at that point is familiar and Phil frowns, stepping around the corner of the station building to get a better look. Half a dozen weapons immediately fix on him, but the man lifts a hand and a moment later, the guns fall away.

“Agent Coulson,” Nick Fury calls. “Thank you for containing the situation until we could arrive.”

The dissonance, of having Director Fury here, in Waverly, throws Phil for a moment and he stares, unable to think of a response.

Then Barton makes himself known, shouting, “Hey, eyepatch! Took you guys long enough to show up! What, do little towns in Iowa not get the same prompt response?”

Fury looks up to where Barton is probably still standing on the roof. “I beg your pardon?” he asks and Phil’s starting to notice differences, between this Fury and the one he knows. Knew, maybe, if what Phil’s starting to suspect is true.

Phil’s never worked as anything resembling a handler during his time at SHIELD—the other SHIELD, he corrects himself, because the insignia on Nick Fury’s shoulder looks familiar, even from this distance—but his years with the Rangers had given him plenty of opportunity to build similar skills. “Barton!” he barks. “Get down here.”

There’s a noise above Phil and a moment later, Barton’s head extends over the edge. “How do you know my name?”

Phil doesn’t answer, just raises his eyebrows. He’s not smiling, but there’s an elation, a sense of excitement and rightness thrumming through him. This, this is what he’d hoped to do with SHIELD, all those years ago. Being in the field, active and _doing_ something _._

Barton huffs and Phil’s pretty sure he rolls his eyes, but a moment later, he’s scrambling down the side of the building like a monkey, fingers and toes catching at imperfections in the wall. He drops the last few feet and lands in front of Phil, rocking a bit on his feet.

“If you already know my name, it’s only fair that I know yours,” he says. For a second, Phil’s caught by the blue of Barton’s eyes.

“Weren’t you listening?” Phil asks, giving himself a mental shake. Getting star-struck over some nice shooting and a pair of baby blues is hardly the way to start this new life. “Get your suitcase, you’re going to want it.” Stepping around Barton—close enough that their shoulders brush, Phil’s suit against Barton’s faded sweatshirt and Phil imagines he can feel heat leech through at that brief point of contact—he looks at Fury. “Perhaps try to get here a bit sooner next time, sir?” he calls.

Fury grins at him. “Yeah, yeah. Come on in, agent. And bring your new toy, too.”

~*~

Clint’s pressed against Phil from shoulder to knee, a necessary side effect of hitching a ride in an already full helicopter. Phil does his best to not think about it, because he’s pretty sure thinking about it will lead to thinking about _it_ and there are a dozen well-trained agents on all sides, making that a very bad idea.

It’s not a surprise, really, this attraction. Phil’s always held an appreciation for the function and form of the male body. He’s just always had an equal admiration of the female form, as well. The real surprise is the timing and the subject, since it’s been years since Phil’s been attracted to another man and Barton isn’t anything like the men he’s been attracted to in the past.

Except the way Barton exudes confidence and skill, even dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and slouched on a bench between Phil and a man in full tactical gear. Those qualities had always been highly attractive.

Phil allows himself one quick glance, taking in short light brown hair, blue eyes hooded and unfocused, the curve of Barton’s lower lip, the oddly elegant fingers tangled in his lap. Then he looks away and reminds himself that, at best, he’ll end up as Barton’s handler, and at worst, he’ll only ever see the man in passing. No use in getting attached now.

“Hey, g-man,” Barton says, breath warm on Phil’s ear. He suppresses the shiver that causes. “We there yet?”

“Barton—“

“Clint,” the archer corrects. Phil turns carefully, just far enough to see Barton’s—Clint’s—face.

“Clint,” Phil repeats evenly. “It’s a three hour flight and we’ve only been in the air for half an hour. No, we are not there yet.”

“Ah,” Clint says. He moves back and Phil looks forward again. A moment later, though, the pressure at his shoulder changes as Clint leans in again. “I only ask because—well, never mind.”

He leans away again and Phil resists for all of a minute before sighing and turning again. “What is it, Clint?”

“Nah. You don’t want to know,” Clint says. Phil closes his eyes for a moment and counts to ten.

“Just tell me, Barton.”

“If you insist,” Clint says and Phil feels his shoulder move in a restricted shrug. Clint tilts his head in close, close enough that Phil can almost feel the movement of Clint’s lips against his ear. “The sooner we get there, the sooner I can find out you look as good under that suit as I think you do.”

Clint moves back without waiting for a reply, mouth curved in a smug smirk. Phil feels his face flush and looks away, focusing on the sway of some straps near the ceiling as he tries to keep his reaction to those words from being too obvious.

Some time later, he dares another look at Clint, only to find blue eyes looking back at him. Clint smiles and his eyes drop—Phil follows his gaze automatically—to where his hand is moving to rest against the side of his thigh, pressed against Phil’s in a deliberately casual move.

This time, Phil smirks back and shoves at Clint’s shoulder as he moves in response, mindful of their company, ending up with his forearm pressed against Clint’s knuckles and his shoe tucked around Clint’s ankle. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Clint fight a  blush and smiles.

Hello, SHIELD. Hello, paperwork. Hello, Clint.


End file.
